...and they all look vaguely murderous because you woke them up at like, 3am to hunt down a damn deer in the woods.
Okay, so this page took me about a million times longer than anticipated, especially seeing as it clocks in at four whole panels and two whole words! And here we discover that Aubrey has not just Connie in her life, but a whole pack of weirdos as well. Also, tomorrow's page has so many panels and so many words, so I had to take it easy somewhere.
I don't mean to spoil anything, but it'll be awhile before we learn anyone's name in the actual comic, so skip this part if you're not interested! I had thought to do those little boxes that introduce characters like you see a lot of times, but I don't like that it distracts aesthetically from this page.
Left to right: Ginger is the very small one, Marcus is the very tall one, Aubrey obvs, Harvey in the hoodie and Uggs combo, and...Tim. Tim the werewolf. Tim is an interesting guy.
I figured I should take a minute to talk about character design. I know some people are traumatized about starting a comic or any other media project because they're determined to sit down and draw all the turn-arounds for every character, and analyze everything they're wearing...and that's fine, but when you're one person, you might as well just make the thing you're planning to make and worry less about prep work. It's good, if you're questioning who a character is, or if you just want to push your designs farther than you normally do, but you don't have to endlessly plan to make something good. Minimal planning, whatever you need to get by, and then shove the thing out the door into the world. Your drawings and characters will evolve as you evolve as an artist, and there's not much you're going to be able to do about it in the end. I design most of my characters on the fly, which I know ruins the mystique a little, but basically, once they look like who they look like in my head, I stop there and roll with it.
That being said, here's how I designed these folks:
Ginger is based off this girl I work with who has an interesting face. I decided she should be small because I'm small, and I like to draw tiny characters who look like myself. I wanted her to have a more feminine style, to contrast with the whole werewolf salt-of-the-earth thing.
Marcus is based off this other guy I used to work with, and also a photo I liked from Humanae. He's lanky and tall because most of the dudes I draw end up being some variation on that. I should probably draw some not lanky tall dudes.
Aubrey...I don't really remember where she came from. I just sort of started drawing and she showed up. I wanted someone as opposite looking to Malaya as possible, so heavier build, sort of punk/utilitarian style, short hair, blond and pale.
Harvey just sort of came to me this way. I wanted one character who seemed no-nonsense and sort of tired looking.
Tim was one of the wolves I had planned from the get-go, just a matter of shoving him in here somewhere. I wanted a werewolf who was almost crazed from the transformation and only a little human still.